MAVS ICE HEAT AGAIN

 

(Image taken from NBA.com)

Well the Mavs beat the Heat in Game 1. Jason Terry ran the offence, Avery Johnson set up a solid defence and anyone fancying the Heat to take the title now knew that their pick wouldn't be straightforward. Still with Game 2, the Heat and a second chance to get a win in Dallas and a Game 2 win would be just as lethal as a Game 1 win in terms of switching homecourt advantage.

To that end Shaq opened the scoring. Nowitski replied with two free throws, Wade replied with one of his own but wasn't till Jason Terry's jumper three minutes into the first quarter that the Mavs grabbed their first lead and they went on a 7-0 run, allowing them to maintain a solid lead till late on, by which point the Heat drw level through a pair of Wade free throws. The Mavs regained the lead through a Stackhouse jumper. 18-17 at the end of the first.

The Heat weren't down yet though and a Wade dunk early on in the second quarter saw them regain the lead and though a Keith van Horn three pointer went on to level things it was Miami's show for a while till a Josh Hoawrd three levelled things before a tip shot saw the Mavs regain the lead halfway through the quarter. A 9-0 run followed by an 11-0 left the Heat down 50-34 at the half.

Could the Heat come back in the third quarter? The answer was no, thanks to a combination of Terry and Howard to start with and then the Avery Johnson wall took over. I don't particularly like long points droughts in games but the fact is, it's a tactic that works, and though the Heat rallied late on in the quarter they we still facing an 82-58 deficit coming on to the home stretch.

The Heat certainly tried to turn things round anyway, helped by the Mavs hitting a drought for nearly four minutes at the start of the fourth. Still the lead was cut to 16 with that first run then later on it got as low as 12 with two and a half minutes remaining. The Mavs were never really threatened though and went on to win 99-85, chasing the Heat back to Miami for Game 3

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